Discover the best blood pressure monitor - Reviews and Ratings

When you search for blood pressure monitor, the results are overwhelming. Most of the people get confused with many available choices. There are many good brands with different features. But the question is which blood pressure monitor is good for you and fits your budget?

Here, you will find answers to all the questions. In addition, some other information which will help you to make an informed decision.

We provide detailed analysis of each blood pressure monitor available in the market and provide our recommendation.

Blood pressure monitors can be categorized into two types – Manual and Automatic. For home, automatic blood pressure monitors are more popular compared to manual ones. Using automatic device, it is very simple to measure blood pressure accurately at home. The cuff that is wrapped around the arm will inflate and deflate automatically, no need to do anything manual. The systolic and diastolic blood pressures reading will be displayed digitally. Most of the blood pressure monitor devices display pulse reading too. To operate fully automatic blood pressure monitor, no special skills are required. They are ideal for home.

Automatic digital monitors come with different types of cuff:

Upper Arm:

Upper Arm Cuffs are the most common and accurate. The cuff is wrapped around your upper arm and is connected to the actual monitor that displays the readings.

Wrist:

Wrist based cuffs tend to be more portable and less bulky. The common belief is that, they lack accuracy when compared to the upper arm cuffs. However, in recent times more research is conducted and the new wrist blood pressure monitors accuracy are as good as the upper arm cuff types. They are well validated and calibrated.

Considerations for buying a Blood Pressure Monitor

Accuracy:

Accuracy is the fundamental for any monitoring device. If the readings are not accurate, it is not worth buying. However, it is hard to tell until you use it. Thus, rather becoming a guinea pig, let’s buy the brand which has credibility of displaying accurate readings. Or, you can look for validated devices in the market. British Hypertension Society(BHS) validates the devices based on various criteria, and accuracy is one of them, they clinically evaluate blood pressure monitoring devices and issues a validation certificate based. Thus, when you buy, BHS certified Blood pressure monitor, accuracy is guaranteed. In addition, you can look for features that improve accuracy such as taking reading multiple times and then averaging them.

Fitting:

Fitting and accuracy goes hand in hand. If the fitting is not correct, then the monitor will not display accurate readings. While considering fitting, the most important aspect is blood pressure cuff size. For upper arm blood pressure monitors, cuffs come in different sizes such as small, medium and large. However, different manufacturer might have different criteria for small, medium and large cuff. To find the appropriate cuff, measure the circumference of your arm and the numerical value of the circumference cuff supports.

Ease of Use:

If you are planning to monitor blood pressure at home, the first thing comes to mind is the ease of use. If you are planning to buy a manual blood pressure monitor, then you need to learn to operate the device. It requires you to inflate the cuff, same as in automatic, but manually. In addition, it requires Stethoscope to listen to arterial blood sound and manually check the pulse rate. No doubt, to do this you need to be trained properly. However, if you decide to go for digital blood pressure monitor, the readings are just a click away. The digital blood pressure monitors come with good instruction manual, that come handy for initial days. Few other features that help for evaluation of Ease of use is: displaying the range of blood pressure monitor and large display panel.

Additional Features:

What a consumer need, lots of features in reasonable price. One other aspect, of buying a blood pressure monitor, is the number of features it has. A monitor with storage capacity will always be an added advantage. And the ‘wow’ factor will be when you can store the readings for different users. Another important feature which will attract the consumer is the size of the monitor. A compact monitor will always get preference above the bulkier one. Also, If you are highly mobile, then you might prefer a wrist blood pressure monitor.

Cost:

The budget plays a major role in buying decision. Before making purchase decision, one will evaluate above mentioned factors and compare the cost analysis. My recommendation is to try out in the market and get blood pressure monitor which fulfills all the above criteria and fits in your budget.

Conclusion

We always try to buy products which are better in every aspect. We don’t want to compromise on quality, features, ease of use and durability. Above all, we want everything to our budget. It is a tricky situation. It is a hard work to evaluate so many good brands in the market and circling on one which fulfill all our requirements. Sometimes you find one that meet all the requirements and sometimes you get one by compromising on a few aspects.

Blood pressure monitor is not some product to buy every day, it need a lot of research. Eventually, it is monitoring your heart health. Accuracy is the feature that matters a lot in blood pressure monitors. Hence, no compromises. Based on our evaluation and analysis, here are our some recommendations.

If you want to measure your blood pressure on the run and you need to measure it at regular intervals, then you need a monitor which is high on ease of use and handy. Omron 7 Series (BP652) Wrist Blood Pressure Monitor is for you.

There is another brand which is very much underrated because it is not very well known in the market. However, it is rich in features and very budgeted. If you are not very brand conscious but want all the features, then you can go for Ozeri BP2M CardioTech Premium Series Digital Blood Pressure Monitor.

There is a brand new 2014 version of one of the Omron’s blood pressure monitors, which is stylish and have a sleek look, ease of use is amazing, have features such as True Read, ComFit, AM/PM Averaging, Multi User and many more. The high point of this blood pressure monitor is its accuracy. Thus, if you are okay on budget but want great product for you and for your loved ones, then the answer is Omron 10 Series BP785N or BP786 Arm Blood Pressure Monitor.